Web Performance in Action

Chapter 9. Boosting performance with service workers

This chapter covers

• Understanding what service workers are and what they allow you to do
• Installing a service worker on a simple site
• Caching network requests inside a service worker
• Updating a service worker

As the web has matured, so too has the technology that it relies on. No longer are we tied to our desks while browsing the web. With the advent of mobile devices, people are accessing content on Wi-Fi and data networks of varying degrees of quality and reliability. This introduces challenges in the way we access content, particularly in the case of poor or absent internet connections that may leave the user in a lurch.

Sometimes we go offline—in an airplane without Wi-Fi, or passing ...